In the spirit of talking about big issues that affect the little people, NIWA says ordinary NZers should be very worried about climate change:

Jim Salinger, a climate scientist at New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, said climate change likely will cause a decline in the production of malting barley in parts of New Zealand and Australia. Malting barley is a key ingredient of beer.

“It will mean either there will be pubs without beer or the cost of beer will go up,” Mr. Salinger told the Institute of Brewing and Distilling convention.

I don’t know whether to believe the doom merchants, but it certainly has me worried! Maybe this is the incentive people need to actually do something. Having to trade off between big cars and beer might spur ‘mum and dad New Zealanders’ into action! Or we could just have a carbon tax…